


alive

by orphan_account



Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Depression, Happy Ending, M/M, Sad, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide, Suicide Hotline, seriously its not as sad as it seems, then happy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-27
Updated: 2016-07-27
Packaged: 2018-07-27 01:11:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7597585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>tyler doesn't really want to live but he also doesn't want to die<br/>josh works for a suicide hotline</p>
            </blockquote>





	alive

**Author's Note:**

> i'm sad and still awake and writing at 4am what's new
> 
> it's starting to get light and i sleep with my skylight blinds open and I can see one remaining star in the sky and its pretty af
> 
> tw for suicidal thoughts 
> 
> idrk i write these out before I write a fic bc this is my equivalent to a plan this is why my writing's a mess
> 
> i have ryro's song where i belong in my head ooooops
> 
> SIDE NOTE ITS ONLY AFTER I READ THIS THAT I REALISED THERES ANOTHER FIC LIKE THIS???? I DIDNT MEAN TO STEAL THE IDEA?????????? ITS DIFFERENT THOUGH I THINK (IDK I HAVENT READ THE OTHER YET)
> 
> also tyler's 18 and josh is 19 idk why but yeah ages

Tyler Joseph did not want to die. He really didn’t. He didn’t want to miss out on new music or on concerts or on basketball games or on doing things with his friends. Even if not wanting to miss out on life was his only real reason to live, he still didn’t want to die.

But he also didn’t want to live. He didn’t want to wake up anxious about so many things that he didn’t even know why he was. He didn’t want to wake up sad. He didn’t want to wake up lonely. Sometimes he didn’t want to wake up at all.

But like I said he didn’t want to die. It was complicated.

Tyler usually ignored the part of him that didn’t always want to live. He went to school, he studied and got good grades, he played basketball, and he hung out with his friends. He lived his life. Even though he didn’t really want to.

Whenever shit got particularly bad, he pretended to be sick. Stayed at home in bed all day. He didn’t go to school or study or play basketball. He turned down plans with everyone. But he survived and he didn’t think about dying too much and he went back to life eventually and everything was okay.

Then it wasn’t.

He’ll never understand what the fuck made him snap like he did, but damn, he snapped. Like a twig. Being bent by a bodybuilder. Like that. All of a sudden everything became too much for him and the new music and the concerts and the basketball games and doing things with people didn’t seem to be worth the bother anymore.

Tyler didn’t really want to die but he didn’t want to live feeling how he did. Like a waste of space, a burden, someone who was better off dead. He knew it wasn’t really true. But he believed it anyway. So clearly, the only way to stop feeling like this and to stop being sad and nervous and feeling alone was to die (a/n it’s not). Clearly.

It was only when he sat on his bed, three bright orange-brown pill bottles, one full of Prozac, one half full of some Restoril, and another almost empty with some pain medication in the bottom, that he really thought about what he was planning on doing. Dying. Killing himself just because he was sad all of a sudden. How pathetic.

And then he broke down in tears.

He honestly did not know how he could get to this point but he knew, that deep down somewhere he didn’t actually want this. He didn’t actually want to die, he just didn’t want to live the life he was living. Not really knowing what to do, who he could talk to, he googled ‘suicide hotlines Ohio’, typing the first number he saw into his phone. Before he could hesitate, could stop himself, he hit call.

Josh Dun did not want to die. He wanted to be around for rainy Sundays spent drinking tea, for playing drums really loudly, and for seeing cute cats on the street. He really and truly did not want to die.

But he did before.

He had wanted to die so badly, so, so badly that he swallowed an entire bottle of some sleeping medication he wasn’t even bothered to read the name of, feeling calm as every last one of the bright blue pills slid down his throat. He wasn’t quite so calm when he woke u three days later in hospital with tubes coming out of everywhere on his body. 

For ages he was angry, that he lived, that he was ‘saved’, that he had to be put in the stupid psychiatric ward ‘for his own good’. Then he wasn’t. It was a joke that another boy in the ward, Brendon, had told him that made him realise he was glad he was still alive. He doesn’t remember the joke but he remembers the laughter that he emitted in that moment and how it left him with tears streaming down his face and sore sides and it made him so damn happy.

That was 2 years ago now. He realised he wanted to help other people feel like he now did so he volunteered at a suicide hotline. It was just past 11 pm when a call came in on Josh’s line. He picked up the phone and put on his best comforting yet professional voice (which you learn to practise when you’ve worked at a hotline for a while).  
“Hi, my name’s Josh Dun, I’m a volunteer at Ohio State Suicide Hotline. How can I help?”

Tyler didn’t really know what to say. He didn’t really expect anyone to pick up even though that’s stupid, it’s a hotline for christ’s sake it’s what they’re meant to do. He remains silent for a while, trying to find his voice.

“It’s okay if you don’t really want to talk, you can just stay on the line if you want or you could tell me your name or something you like to do. You don’t have to talk about what lead you here either. But if you do that’s cool. I’ll listen. It’s kind of my job to,” Josh says after a minute or two of silence. He was used to it, people got nervous, and he didn’t blame them.

“Uh, T-tyler, my name’s Tyler”, the younger boy stuttered out, feeling quite overwhelmed. “I like music and, uh basketball I guess.”

“That’s great because, although I may have 0 knowledge of anything basketball related, I love music a lot. Do you play any instruments?” Josh was honestly just glad to get a reply out of the one on the other end of the line. Sitting in silence with someone on the phone is pretty awkward (but it still beats the line going mid-call).

“I play the, um, the ukulele and uh, a bit of the piano, I guess.”

“That’s sick, man! I play drums. We should, like, totally start a band some day or something.”

Tyler laughed lightly, almost inaudibly, “what kind of band consists of drums, uke and a piano?”

“I don’t know like the best kind of band?”

The two fall into easy conversation for a while, almost as if they’ve known each other for years, before Tyler’s mom comes along tells him that it’s getting late. That’s parent-language for ‘you have five minutes to get off the damn phone and into bed’. So he started to say goodbye to Josh.

“Hold on, wait a minute Tyler. I don’t know if you were planning on doing anything bad tonight or if you just needed a friend to talk to, but if you did have plans, I want you to put whatever you were going to use away or throw it out, okay? Please? “

Tyler had completely forgotten about the three ugly pill bottles on his bed beside him still and he resolved to put them away whenever the call was done. “Yeah, okay, I will.”

“Thank you, Ty and hey if you ever need to talk to anyone again, don’t hesitate to call here or my actual number,” came Josh’s reply and Tyler swears he’s never run so fast as he did to get pen and paper to take down that number.”

Six years, a whole lot of texts, calls, crying and fair bit of kissing and dates later, they’re playing a show in St Louis. 

“Imma ask you a question, alright. I wanna know the true answer, I don’t wanna hear it if you don’t, if you don’t mean it don’t say it, do-don’t scream, don’t yell, but if you mean it right now in this moment, are you guys happy to be here alive tonight?” And Tyler swears that when he hears that room of people and Josh, cheer right back at him because they’re happy to be alive, he swears that there’s no where he’d rather be than right there. And he wants to scream too. Because he’s happy to be alive in that moment.

**Author's Note:**

> im sorry that i only write sad things but hey this on ehad a happy ending and no one died
> 
> here's Tyler's speech in st louis, its my favourite thing ever so cherish it (especially bc i did nottttt want to share it lmao) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWYe8V_ZO28
> 
> comments and kudos and stuff are appreciated
> 
> stay safe my dudes<333


End file.
